Less than ten hours after Apple’s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, reached users’ hands, news headlines were dominated by worrying reports of its internal screens cracking, with some devices even arriving damaged inside Apple stores themselves. This scene brought back nightmares of the initial launches of foldable phones in the tech world, but the threads of the issue are finally unraveling, and it seems the real blame does not lie with the Cupertino engineers this time.
A Flaw in Parts, Not an Engineering Design Defect
Initial speculation pointed to a flaw in the hinge mechanism, a theory bolstered by teardowns conducted by the iFixit team, which showed pressure concentrating at specific points with the potential for dust particles to cause severe damage. However, recent leaks from informed sources in Chinese supply chains, via the famous leaker Kang and reported by Ice Universe, revealed that the real cause is manufacturing defects in materials provided to Apple by one of its hinge suppliers, rather than an inherent design flaw in the phone’s structure.
Technical examinations of some damaged devices revealed that a small metal part inside the hinge mechanism deforms or breaks completely during the folding process, causing it to pierce the flexible screen from the bottom up and damage it. Although Apple relies on two companies to supply these hinges, one of them, the Korean company Fine M-Tech, was quick to issue an official statement denying any connection between its parts and this problem, threatening legal action against any entity claiming otherwise.
What Does This Mean for iPhone Duo Buyers?
Fortunately, narrowing the problem down to a defective manufacturing batch is reassuring news for anyone hesitant to purchase the luxury phone, which costs over two thousand dollars. Reports indicate that Apple can accurately identify affected devices based on their serial numbers, enabling it to pull unsold units from store shelves and shipping warehouses to prevent them from reaching buyers.
As for affected customers, Apple has committed to replacing their devices for free, although the biggest obstacle currently is the shortage of replacement units due to high demand and long waiting lines. The positive side for those who have pre-ordered their devices and are waiting for them to arrive is that their batches are being newly manufactured after completely excluding the faulty parts from the assembly lines.
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